Katja Schenker (born 1968 in St. Gallen, Switzerland) is a contemporary Swiss artist based in Zurich. Her multidisciplinary practice spans performance, sculpture, drawing, video, and installation. Schenker studied comparative literature, art history, and philosophy at the University of Zurich and at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris.
Her artistic process is deeply physical and often begins with an emotional impulse. Through performative actions—wrapping, pulling, cutting, tearing—she engages with a range of materials such as fabric, concrete, wood, and stone. These actions serve as meditations on themes of vulnerability, transience, material presence, and the relationship between body and space.
Schenker has received multiple accolades, including the Swiss Art Award (three times), the Swiss Performance Art Award (2015), and the Cultural Recognition Prize of St. Gallen (2021). She has held international artist residencies in Rome and London and exhibited at institutions such as the Jinji Lake Art Museum (Suzhou), He Xiangning Art Museum (Shenzhen), Ural Biennale (Russia), BienalSur (Argentina), and the Kunsthaus Zürich.